TheDesignFile

A fishy bedroom design from Land of Nod

I got this photo of an adorable kid’s room in my inbox today from Land of Nod. I thought it was so cute!

There was a version for girls as well. But frankly, I thought this was plenty gender neutral and much cuter.

So what would this set you back? Here’s how I have it figured:

A tea party fit for a princess - or two!

Warning: This post is definitely a departure from the usual decorating and DIY fare you find here!

I’m going to share photos from my nieces’ princess tea party, an event to celebrate their 4th birthdays last month.

My mom, sister and I put this little party together and the girls and their friends and cousins loved it.

I’m not going to pretend that this tea party compares with some of the little girls’ soirees I’ve seen featured on the web. If you want to get some amazing inspiration, check out these:

• Nostalgic Floral Guest Dessert Feature

• Kami Buchanan Custom Designs: Vintage Birthday Party

• customer parties:: butterfly tea party birthday

But we had fun nonetheless and we didn’t spend too much money.

My sister had the idea of hosting a tea party for the girls but there seemed little way to avoid some princess touches.

So we decided tulle, tutus and crowns would be part of the celebration – in addition to some antique tea cups, fun tea pots and finger foods.

The goal was to create a whimsical outdoor space while giving the kids lots of freedom to dress up and play.

Whimsical girl's room features sea life

I’m not usually a big fan of theme rooms but it’s hard to resist them for little ones.

The girl’s room here is based on the whimsy of sea creatures and is named “Under the Sea – Ariel’s Room.”

The space – designed by Zoya Bograd, owner of luxury baby furniture showroom and online retailer, Rooms by Zoya B. – was actually created in 2007 for the Hampton Designer Showhouse.

But Zoya has created a new video explaining the inspiration for the room as part of a celebration of this year’s Showhouse, which benefits the Southampton Hospital.

This year’s showhouse features the work of about 25 designers and runs through Sept. 24. It’s at 1224 Scuttle Hole Road in Bridgehampton, NY.

It is open daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.. Admission is $30 and includes a journal.

Get more information about the event at http://www.hamptondesignershowhouse.com.

But back to Zoya’s cute room inspired by the sea. Let’s look at some pictures of the room:

For the basis of the design of the room, Zoya was inspired by the beach town of Bridgehampton, the whimsical nature of mermaids and seascapes coming to mind.

Growing up in the Ukraine, one of her favorite fairy tales was “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson. For her daughter, the Disney version of the classic represented a more fun and adventurous narrative, and so both feelings were incorporated into the design.

The video walk-through below describes inspiration for the other pieces in the room, including the “Princess Bed” from the ZoyaB Collection and the hand-blown Murano Glass chandelier.

Turning kids' art into a modern masterpiece

Plus, a Q&A with the mastermind behind The Great Remember

I don’t have kids and so I don’t have both the pleasure (and the burden) of all those art and school projects that little boys and girls bring home to Mom & Dad.

I do have nieces, though, and even though they’re not even 3 years old yet, I can already tell I want to save everything they put on paper!

But how can you do that without eventually boxing it all up and storing it in the basement?

Enter The Great Remember, an online shop that will turn your child’s artwork, favorite sayings and even their clothes into amazing, modern artwork.

See the piece above right, which incorporates kids art into their name. Or check out the piece below.

The Great Remember turned these adorable pieces of art into a great collage that allows you to see the individual works in just one collage. Perfect!

 The Great Remember is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based artist, Lisa Waltuch, who produced her first piece incorporating people’s artifacts into art work while a student in design at Rhode Island School of Design. There, she created a woven tapestry for poet Lynore Banchoff that included her prom dress, lace from her trousseau, her wedding set of towels, her son’s bib, and her daughter’s Halloween costume.

Since then, she has turned smaller items into wonderful works of art through The Great Remember as well as creating larger scale pieces that are reflective of people’s lives.

There are so many amazing options and think what a great idea this is for Mother’s Day!

For example, you can turn your child’s old clothing into a great collage, like the one below called “Birds,” which costs $749 for an 18-inch-square piece.

So how did founder Lisa come up with this great idea?

We asked her that and other questions. Check out her answers below:

Sweet pink rooms for little girls

One of my nieces – 2-1/2 year old Claire – is a real girly girl. She loves everything pink, including her clothes, her toys, her room.

Seeing her recently – dressed in a pink top, carrying pink bags and collecting all the pink toys she could find – inspired me to check out some pink girls’ bedrooms.

I was looking for rooms that incorporated the color without being overly frilly.

I like the Better Homes and Gardens room at right. It’s obviously not meant for someone as young as Claire; this looks like a tween’s room. But I’m crazy about the pink and orange color scheme and think it could be used for any age.

The BHG room below incorporates lots of pink as well but I think the rosier pink – rather than a bubble gum color – makes it more sophisticated.

I do think pink can really look young or sophisticated depending on part on the colors with which it’s paired.

In the BHG room below left, the orange subdues the pink. In the BHG bunk room below right, the blue gives the pink a much more playful and childlike feel.

Pink and green seems to always be a great, girly combination and I love both rooms below, which are from Southern Living and MyHomeIdeas.com.

I think the warm pink in the room below left becomes almost a neutral. It’s so sweet! In the room below right, though, the focus is the vibrant wallpaper and the bright pink chandelier.

One of these days soon, I’m going to show you Claire’s room, which is a softer pink than any of these spaces. I love it!

An inspiring dorm room makeover

I’ve been out of college for 20 years now (gasp!) but there’s still something about dorm rooms that fascinate me. It’s that challenge of trying to create a cozy space when you’ve got almost no space but need to pack in beds, a desk and storage.

That’s why I really enjoyed watching the video below from designer Rebecca Robeson of San Diego, who did a fabulous dorm room makeover for her daughter and her roommate. (By the way, it started out as a pretty awesome room for a dorm – nothing like the one I lived in!)

Enjoy:

After you’re done checking out the finished room, you can go to this much longer video to get the behind-the-scenes look at how Rebecca created the space.

Sunday roundup: An adorable nursery plan & more

There’s always something interesting to see and read about over at the Simplified Bee, written by Cristin Priest, a professional organizer and designer who has a fantastic eye.

While visiting the blog last week, I saw this beautiful mood board she created for an elephant-themed nursery. It’s really adorable.

“In a palette of soft blues, green and brown, some may say this nursery is all boy, but I’d say it would be fun for a girl too,” Cristin writes.

I completely agree with. I think it would be adorable for a little boy or girl.

What do you think?

Cristin was inspired to create the mood board by an adorable elephant-themed 1st birthday party.

You have to check out the incredible cake that this little boy got to dig into!

Here’s what else I liked last week:

• Check out a story about “Barnstorming” in The Washington Post. “Barn sales are a new trend in decorating, offering an alternative shopping experience for antique, vintage and one-of-a-kind furnishings,” The Post says.

• Realty Insights has an interesting post for anyone trying to decide whether to launch a home search in snowy February: 5 Reasons to Begin Your Home Search Now.

• The Pink Chandelier has a post with some beautiful photos of foyers. My favorites have the dark walls and zebra rugs.

Must-Have #16: Functional, stylish toy storage

My husband and I don’t have kids and so the few toys we have – for little ones who visit, not my husband (most of the time) – fit nicely in a storage ottoman in our bedroom.

But I do have a pair of 2-year-old nieces and lots of friends with kids so I have some sense of the importance of toy storage. Therefore, I'm not surprised at all toy storage ended up on our list of 30 Home Must-Haves.

However, I’ve got no expertise.

So I’ve turned to Jessica Albaugh, a mother of two adorable girls and owner of a home in the historic Meridian-Kessler neighborhood.

I visited the Albaugh’s house last year to preview a home tour and saw the family’s fantastic play room – shown at right.

Of course, not everyone has the opportunity to design a basement room meant for playing and stowing away toys. Still, I thought Jessica’s ideas about toy storage were definitely worth passing along.

So here are Jessica’s tips:

• The shallower the toy storage bin the better. That way you can see from top to bottom as you can’t fit so many toys that you forget what’s at the bottom. (At right is the TROFAST system from IKEA, $224 in this combination.)

• Ziplock bags are the BEST organization tip!  They keep playing cards, flashcards, small puzzles, markers, colored pencils, etc.  all in one spot so you can keep many of the same type of game/toy in the same bin while still being able to have all the pieces in one spot.

• Clear plastic jars – ideal for art project items.  Those pesky containers the foam stickers come in look great, but the minute you open then they EXPLODE and never go back together quite the same way. I bought a 3 pack of plastic jars from Michaels for $10 and use them for everything from stampers, stickers, beads, etc. I love them and keep them on a shelf just out of reach from my 3-year-old so I have to get them to down and know she’s playing with them (the 1-year-old can’t play with these items so I keep it supervised). The ones at right come from Craftynest, where you can see a tutorial for making your own.

• DONATE!!!!!! Don’t be afraid to donate toys – when you have to many it actually over stimulates your child and they can’t play and be as imaginative as they could be with less.  I go through our toy room about once a month and purge what is not being played with (or has been to played with).

• More floor space is better than more toys.  Give your kids space to spread out and enjoy the toys they have and especially in a space they can be a kid – not on a wool rug in the formal living room

Thanks Jessica for your great advice.

Below are some other nice kids storage photos that I found while browsing for this post. Before I show you those, though, check out the options at the top of the post. From left: Platinum elfa Mesh Classroom Drawers, $539 this combination, Container Store; Medium Locker in Red - KidKraft Furniture, Levitz, $75; and 3-Cube Bench, $49-$189, Land of Nod.

Below is a hallway-turned-play space in the West Bay Idea House that was featured in Southern Living and featured on MyHomeIdeas.com. These built-in shelves provide lots of easily reachable storage space.

Below is a kids storage unit I found at HGTV.

Low, built-in bookcases provide great storage in the Southern Living/MyHomeIdeas.com photo below left. If your toys need to be in a main room of the home, you might want something a little less obvious, like the baskets in the Cottage Living/MyHomeIdeas.com photo below right.

Are you a parent? How do you store all your kids’ toys?

Sunday roundup: A flipped out kitchen & more

I’m a fan of Jeff Lewis Design but I don’t generally watch his the Bravo TV show “Flipping Out”, which means I haven’t been following his work on the House Beautiful 2010 Kitchen of the Year.

So I was excited to see that one of my favorite blogs – Hooked on Houses – wrote last week about the finished room and offered up the video below that features Jeff Lewis and his team talking about the kitchen.

So what do you think?

I really love the neutral color scheme, the art, and the backsplash – along with some of the amenities like that cool sink. But I wasn’t blown away by the finished project. Neither was Julia over at Hooked on Houses.

You can read her thoughts about the house, see more photos and get her readers’ thoughts on the design as well at her post.

Also this week, you should check out:

• The Style Files where Danielle has posted photos of her beautiful nursery, shown at right. It’s just gorgeous!
• Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick shows how she decorated her very tiny porch for fall. She’s got some nice ideas and a great look, especially for a space so small!
• Designer Sherri Blum wrote a nice piece at HomeWorkshop.com about gender-neutral nurseries. “Waiting to find out the sex of your baby makes it a bit trickier when it comes to decorating your nursery,” Sherri says. “The market is inundated with pinks for girls and blues for boys. But there are still many beautiful options available for a gender-neutral nursery.”

Bunk rooms: A great idea for vacation homes

I just returned from a lake cottage weekend with my girlfriends and their families, an annual trip that keeps changing every year as the four little kids in our group get older.

It got me thinking how fun it would be to have a big bunk room where we could put all the kids at night, which got me inspired to look at some vacation bunk rooms.

Then I remembered seeing one in the portfolio of one my favorite design firms, Studio M in Tampa, Florida.

You can see it up top. I think it’s a great design because it incorporates twin and full size beds, which makes the beds so flexible.

You could arguably sleep six people in these beds – although you have to hope you don’t have several snorers or it would pretty darn hard to sleep!

Plus, the color scheme is fantastic.

I found the bunk room at right at MyHomeIdeas.com. It was featured in Coastal Living and I think it’s cool because it’s so light and airy.

In fact, Cottage Living has featured a bunch of great bunk rooms over the years – which is, of course, no surprise given how many vacation homes the magazine shows off.

The modern bunk room below is cool and fun and the color scheme is really in style right now. It’s also at MyHomeIdeas.com.

The sweet little bunk room at right comes from Better Homes and Gardens.

“These beds each have a bit of unique personality, shown off in various hues of softly striped linens,” BHG says of the room.

“By the bed, a small green metal stool does triple duty as a seat, nightstand, and ladder to the top bunk.”

I’m not sure I’d trust that stool as my step up to the top bunk, but it looks great.

But I do like the cottage-feel of the room, with the checkerboard floor and the distressed table.

A great thing about a vacation room like this is you don’t have to worry much about the kids messing it up!

Finally, I wanted to include yet another example from Cottage Living, which featured this bunk room from a home in Santa Cruz, California.

These twin beds are extra long so anyone – not just the kids – can use them.

What do you think? Are bunk rooms a good way to go on vacation? Or is putting four or more kids in one space a bad idea?